Las Vegas Personal Injury Lawyer for Serious Injury Claims in Nevada

A serious injury changes your life in an afternoon. There is the pain and the treatment, and then there is the part nobody warns you about: the phone calls, the paperwork, the adjuster who sounds friendly, the pressure to sign something before you understand it. The bills arrive on schedule. Your income may not.

The person who hurt you is not your real opponent. Their insurance company is, and a Las Vegas personal injury lawyer exists to stand between you and it. It is a business with trained professionals, established procedures and a financial interest in paying you as little as possible. That is not a conspiracy. It is how the other side works, and you should not face it alone.

I am Mitchell Bisson, and I represent injured people in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and across Clark County. I have been litigating for 15 years and I have been licensed in Nevada for over 15 years. You deal with me directly. Big-Firm Power. Street-Level Grit. If I think you do not need a lawyer, I will say so.

Injury claims I handle in Las Vegas and across Nevada

• Car and truck accidents, including collisions on I-15, US-95, the 215 Beltway and the surface-street intersections where most Las Vegas crashes happen
• Motorcycle accidents, where injuries are severe and insurers often start from the assumption that the rider was at fault
• Rideshare accidents involving Uber and Lyft, where the required coverage depends on whether the driver was logged in and waiting for a request or was providing transportation services
• Pedestrian and bicycle accidents, a serious and persistent problem in the Valley, especially at night and along high-speed arterials
• Slip, trip and fall and premises liability claims, including hotel, casino and resort properties where the defendant controls the incident report and the surveillance footage from the first minute
• Wrongful death claims under NRS 41.085 on behalf of heirs and the estate
• Dog bites and animal attacks
• Catastrophic injuries such as traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, amputation and burns, where future care costs dominate the value of the case

Nevada is an at-fault state

Nevada follows a traditional at-fault, or tort, system. If you move here from another state and assume your own insurer pays first, that is not how it works. You pursue the person who caused the harm, and that person’s liability insurer, for the full range of your losses. Those losses fall into two groups.

Economic damages are the provable dollars: medical expenses already incurred and reasonably expected in the future, lost wages, lost earning capacity and out-of-pocket costs. Non-economic damages are physical pain, mental suffering, disfigurement and loss of enjoyment of life. They do not come with a receipt, and in a serious claim they are often the largest piece.

There is one more consequence that works in your favor. Nevada does not make you clear an injury threshold before you may recover for pain and suffering. Nobody gets to argue that your injury is not serious enough to qualify. Your claim turns on proving fault and proving damages, and that is where I work.

The two-year deadline and the shorter ones behind it: the Nevada statute of limitations for personal injury

You generally have two years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit in Nevada under NRS 11.190(4)(e). Miss it and the court will generally dismiss the claim, no matter how badly you were hurt or how clearly the other driver was at fault. A few narrow exceptions exist, but I never plan around them.

Two qualifications matter. For injured minors, NRS 11.250 generally tolls the limitations period, so the clock does not begin running until the child turns 18. Parents should still not wait, because the evidence disappears on the ordinary schedule. And if a city, county, the State or a public employee is involved, separate rules apply under NRS 41.031 through 41.039, including a two-year claim-filing provision in NRS 41.036 and a damages cap in NRS 41.035. Those claims are easy to get wrong on procedure.

The practical deadline is almost always shorter than two years because the proof is perishable. Intersection and business surveillance video is commonly overwritten within days or weeks. Vehicles get repaired or scrapped. Witnesses move and forget. Skid marks and debris are gone by the next rain.

The 51 percent rule and how insurers use it

Nevada follows modified comparative negligence under NRS 41.141. First, your recovery is reduced by your share of fault. If a jury awards $200,000 and finds you 25 percent responsible, you recover $150,000. Second, if your fault is greater than the fault of the party you are suing, you recover nothing, which in a two-driver crash means 51 percent or more. With several defendants, your fault is compared with their combined fault. Not a reduced amount. Nothing.

That is a cliff, not a slope. At 50 percent you still recover half your damages. At 51 percent you recover zero. One percentage point decides everything, which is why the defense works so hard to assign blame to you.

Expect the arguments. You were going a little fast. You were distracted. You could have braked sooner. You wore dark clothing. You waited too long to see a doctor. Each one sounds minor. Left unanswered, they pile up, and they are aimed straight at that cliff. I answer them with evidence.

Nevada’s minimum insurance is often not enough

Nevada requires drivers to carry liability coverage, with minimum limits set by NRS 485.185 for bodily injury per person, bodily injury per accident, and property damage. Those minimums are modest. An ambulance ride, an emergency department visit, a CT scan and two days in a hospital can exhaust a minimum per-person limit before surgery, physical therapy or lost income are even addressed. In a genuinely serious injury, the at-fault driver’s policy is often a fraction of the harm done.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage

This is where UM and UIM coverage on your own policy becomes the most important document in your case. Uninsured motorist coverage applies when the at-fault driver had no insurance at all. It can also apply in a hit-and-run, but only if the unidentified vehicle made physical contact with you or the vehicle you were in, and the crash was reported to the police in time. Underinsured motorist coverage applies when the at-fault driver had coverage but not enough to cover your losses.

In a severe injury case, your own UM and UIM coverage, if you carry it, can be a major source of recovery. Check your declarations page. Nevada requires uninsured motorist coverage in a liability policy unless the named insured rejects it in writing, and insurers must offer uninsured and underinsured coverage at limits equal to the policy’s bodily injury limits. You may have rejected it or chosen lower limits, so the document matters. And understand the shift that happens when you make the claim: your own insurer, which you paid for years, is now the party evaluating and resisting you. I litigate against carriers that undervalue these claims.

Damage caps: when they apply and when they do not

In an ordinary Nevada injury case there is no cap on compensatory damages. You may recover the full measure of your economic and non-economic losses. Two exceptions matter, and both are set by statute and can change.

Claims against government entities are capped under NRS 41.035, and punitive damages are unavailable against the entity. A catastrophic injury caused by a public employee may be worth far more than the statute allows you to collect. Medical malpractice claims are subject to a cap on non-economic damages under NRS 41A.035, on a schedule that steps up over time. That cap applies only to non-economic damages. Your medical costs, future care and lost earnings are not capped. I confirm the current figures for the date of injury at the start of any case where a cap may apply.

Wrongful death in Nevada

When negligence kills someone, NRS 41.085 creates two recovery tracks, and the difference matters to a grieving family. The heirs may recover for their own grief and sorrow, loss of probable support, loss of companionship, society, comfort and consortium, and for the decedent’s pain and suffering. The estate, through the personal representative, may recover medical and funeral expenses and, in appropriate cases, punitive damages.

These cases demand care legally and personally. I handle them seriously, and I keep families informed without burdening them with process they should not have to manage while grieving.

What to do after a crash in Las Vegas

• Get medical attention immediately, even if you feel able to walk away. Adrenaline masks injury, and a gap before your first treatment is the most common argument used to devalue a claim.
• Report the crash. A police report creates an independent record of the scene.
• Photograph both vehicles, their positions, the roadway, traffic controls, visible injuries and the surrounding area. More is better.
• Collect names and contact details for every driver, passenger and witness. Witnesses disappear within hours.
• Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurer, not before you know the extent of your injuries and not before you have spoken to an attorney.
• Do not accept a fast settlement. An early offer often arrives before your claim is fully valued, and a signed release generally cannot be reopened, even if you need surgery next month.

How a Nevada injury claim moves

Most people have never brought a claim before, and the silence between phone calls is unnerving. This is the actual sequence, so you know what should be happening.

Investigation and preservation

This starts immediately and it is the most time-sensitive part of the case. I obtain the police report, send preservation letters to anyone holding video, interview witnesses while memories are intact, and photograph the scene and the vehicles before they are repaired. In serious cases I retain a reconstruction consultant. Evidence collected in the first weeks routinely decides cases that settle a year later.

Treatment and maximum medical improvement

Your case cannot be valued until your doctors know where you will end up. Maximum medical improvement is the point where your condition has stabilized and future needs can be projected. Settling before then means guessing at your own future, and the guess is almost always low. Attend your appointments, follow the treatment plan, and tell your providers about every symptom, because a symptom missing from the records effectively did not happen.

The demand

Once treatment concludes I assemble the full picture: medical records and bills, wage documentation, opinions from treating physicians and retained consultants where needed, and the evidence of how the injury changed your daily life. A well-documented demand frequently produces a serious offer without a lawsuit.

Negotiation, suit and discovery

If negotiation stalls, I file suit in the Eighth Judicial District Court. Filing is not a failure. It is often the only thing that moves an insurer off an unreasonable position. Discovery follows: written questions, document exchange, and depositions of the parties, witnesses and treating physicians. Many cases resolve during or shortly after this phase, when the defense finally sees the evidence assembled.

Arbitration, mediation or trial

Clark County routes many lower-value cases into a court-annexed arbitration program before trial. Cases that remain typically go to mediation, and those that do not resolve there are tried to a jury. I prepare for that outcome from the beginning, because the preparation is what makes the earlier stages work.

What a strong Nevada injury case is built from

• Liability evidence: the police report, scene photographs, physical damage patterns, video, independent witnesses and, where warranted, reconstruction analysis from a retained consultant
• Medical evidence: complete records, imaging, consistent treatment, and clear opinions connecting the collision to the injury, because causation is contested far more often than people expect
• Economic proof: wage records, tax returns, employer statements and, where earning capacity is affected, vocational and economic analysis
• Testimony from family, friends and coworkers about what you could do before and cannot do now, which juries understand far better than a medical chart
• A coverage investigation that finds every applicable policy, including the at-fault party’s liability coverage, umbrella policies, employer coverage where the driver was working, and your own UM and UIM

Related Nevada practice areas

Injuries often come with other legal problems. If a crash led to criminal charges, see my Las Vegas criminal defense lawyer page, including my Las Vegas DUI lawyer page if impaired driving was involved. If police force or a jail caused the harm, see my Las Vegas civil rights attorney page. Related disputes are covered on my Las Vegas civil litigation attorney and Las Vegas business litigation attorney pages, and post-verdict work is on my Nevada appeals lawyer page. If property or title is involved, see my Las Vegas real estate attorney page. Short answers to common questions are on my Nevada legal FAQs page.

Hurt in a Las Vegas crash or fall? Call me before the adjuster calls you.

Law Offices of Mitchell S. Bisson, 625 S. 6th St., Ste. 505, Las Vegas, NV 89101. Call for a free initial consultation: (702) 602-4990 | MBisson@BissonLegal.com. Contact me 24/7 by text or WhatsApp at (616) 295-7414, a number for texts and WhatsApp that is separate from the office lines. Your Rights, My Fight!